Have you ever been to Dillon, Texas? I have. Not in person. But in my heart and my head and in my bones, I’ve been there. I’ve sat at the counter of the Alamo Freeze and sipped a milkshake, I’ve stuffed crumpled dollar bills down the cleavage of the girls at The Landing Strip, I’ve hung out the back of a pickup truck, hair whipped around by the hot night air while the insects hummed through the vast rumbling hills. I’ve sat on the hard butt-numbing bleachers at both East Dillon High and West Dillon High, and screamed till my throat was raw at a high school football game, where nothing and everything is on the line. I would never want to actually live in a small town in Texas (the very thought of that – the low dusty strip malls, the hats, the cultural isolation, the unbearable heat – gives me the willies) but now that I can’t go back anymore, I’m more upset than I want to admit. Last night the series finale of Friday Night Lights aired. (On Direct TV anyway – NBC will be airing the full season starting April 15.) And it was beautiful and perfect and I cried all over the baby who was fast asleep in my arms.
The very best of television shows pull you in so hard that when the credits roll, you have to give your head a shake, roll your neck, and look around your living room, like ‘Oh, right. That wasn’t real.’ Carnivale, The Wire, Lost, and now Friday Night Lights. All so excellent, and capable of transplanting you for an hour at a time to places where you become so familiar with the people and the sights and the smells and sounds that you swear you’ve been there before. Like the last wisps of a dream you can barely remember, you have been there. (Unfortunately another thing most of these shows have in common, save for Lost, was their criminal lack of viewers and awards when they were on the air. So, Big Bang Theory is lauded and Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton [Coach Taylor and his wife] have jack shit. Disgusting. But, I really don’t want to dwell on the negative here, so let’s move on.)
The best endorsement I can give this show, is that every single person I have recommended it to, has loved it. It sounds like a lazy cliché, but there really is something for everybody.
- Good-ass looking boys and girls. Him. Her. Him again.
- Relationships you care about – between married couples, teenagers, brothers, parents, children, a coach and his teams, bandmates. All the characters are so richly developed and portrayed that you either hate or love them or want to topless tongue kiss them for seven years (ahem…Riggins). And you learn to love the ones you hate or just love to hate them, and cheer their successes and ache for their losses and missteps.
- The loose shaky way the cameras circle the actors as they move through a scene, on and off script, all play into that deeper feeling of eavesdropping on these people, and not just watching professionals spit out memorized lines.
- One of the best musical scores in TV, courtesy of the sublime Explosions in the Sky.
- Football games are played where you are hanging off the edge of your seat because it’s never a sure thing the good guys win. Because what this show does best is slide you seamlessly and seemingly effortlessly into these lives, and they’re not better or worse than your own – they’re exactly the same. There is heartbreak and triumph and shitty lessons learned and opportunities missed and sacrifices made and love and loss and football.
Football – a game I didn’t give two shits about when we started watching this five years ago. I still don’t understand 99% of what’s happening out on the field but I watch NFL games now in my Polamalu jersey with the same adrenaline pumping as when I was a hardcore NBA fangirl in the late 90s.
Sure there have been missteps over the years: a Season 2 murder that was way left field and too WB for my tastes; I wanted to fling Becky up against the wall by her curls for most of Season 4, and Julie’s college storyline this last season was sub par – written poorly and painfully predictable. But the great parts, the small moments and the big wins, in the long run and over five seasons, more than make up for these minor quibbles.
Finally, I’d like to tip my hat to Coach Taylor and his wife Tami, the anchors of this show. (If I could have Tami tuck me into bed each night with a soft “Y’all have a good night y’hear,” I’d sleep so well.) Their relationship was portrayed so beautifully that I honestly have a hard time imagining that they aren’t in fact together in real life. The show always came back to them – a fantastic ensemble orbiting around these two marvelous actors. I sincerely hope they move onto projects where their brilliance is recognized and so, selfishly, I can keep watching them. Because fictional or not, man, it’s hard to say goodbye.
Texas forever.
